Omni (OMNI) is an open-source, decentralised cryptocurrency and communications protocol built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. Launched in January 2015, Omni is a logical continuation of Mastercoin (MSC), a simple cryptocurrency which had been created in July 2013 as a fork of Bitcoin. Unlike Mastercoin, Omni Layer is a highly ambitious effort that seeks to take advantage of Bitcoin's blockchain to build support for additional distributed services, such as a decentralised currency exchange, digital assets trading and smart contracts. Although Mastercoin (MSC) is still traded on some exchanges, the current series of desktop wallet clients provide support for Bitcoin (BTC) and Omni (OMNI) only, while the project's web-based client (called Omniwallet) can be customised to include other assets.

DistroWatch.com - BitKey

BitKey is a FREE, Debian-based live Linux distribution designed for Bitcoin users; it comes with specialist utilities to perform highly secure air-gapped Bitcoin transactions. It contains a swiss army knife of handy Bitcoin tools that support a wide range of usage models, including a few very secure ones which would otherwise be difficult to perform. The system boots into one of the three available modes: "cold-offline" - for creating a wallet and signing transactions; "cold-online" - for watching the wallet and preparing transactions; "hot-online" - standard usage but less secure as the private keys are known to the computer which is connected to the internet.

A cryptocoin faucet is a website that gives out small amounts of coins for free. The reasons for the giveaway vary - from spreading the awareness for the coin to allowing the users test their client software. Some third-party faucets give out coins with the sole purpose of making money from advertising by attracting high volumes of traffic to their websites. To combat fraud and automated access via scripts, the visitors on some faucet sites may need to demonstrate that they are human by answering a captcha or by playing a simple game.

BlackCoin developer "rat4" has announced the release of BlackCoin (BLK) 1.2.2, a new stable version of the project's proof-of-stake (PoS) cryptocurrency with focus on user privacy and transaction anonymity. This version appears to be a minor bug-fix update, although it enforces the switch to the PoS protocol version 3 by disconnecting clients that run older builds of the wallet. The brief release announcement was published on BitcoinTalk.org earlier today: "Update v1.2.2. Changelog: disconnect nodes not updated to protocol v3; remove coin selection by coin age; rename OP_NOP2 to OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY; fix a bug in option -salvagewallet; enforce low-s also in block signatures." The new BlackCoin wallet, available for Linux and Windows, is ready for download from GitHub: blackcoin-1.2.2-linux.zip (4.67MB), blackcoin-1.2.2-windows.zip (10.8MB). Finally, a link to the source code: v1.2.2.tar.gz (2.41MB).

BlackCoin developer "rat4" has announced the release of BlackCoin (BLK) 1.2.1. BlackCoin is an open-source, decentralised cryptocurrency with focus on user privacy and transaction anonymity, using proof-of stake as its consensus mechanism and paying up to 1% of interest per annum. This minor version of BlackCoin represents mostly a bug-fix release and a security update: "Update v1.2.1. Changelog: fixed compatibility of getrawtransaction rpc function; removed relaying of the checkpoints; improved initial synchronization; binaries are built with updated miniupnpc to fix CVE-2015-6031." BitcoinTalk.org has the release announcement with a brief changelog. Version 1.2.1 of the BlackCoin wallet client is available for the Linux and Windows operating systems; download links: blackcoin-1.2.1-linux.zip (4.57MB), blackcoin-1.2.1-windows.zip (10.8MB). Finally, for those readers who prefer to compile their own wallet clients, here is the link to the source code: v1.2.1.tar.gz (2.41MB).

BlackCoin developer "rat4" has announced the release of BlackCoin (BLK) 1.2.0, a major new version of the proof-of-stake cryptocurrency project and a mandatory upgrade. This release officially updates the BlackCoin's ticker from BC to the more widely-used BLK: "Mandatory update v1.2.0. Update before 05 Oct 2015 07:00:00 UTC. This update will re-index the blockchain. Changelog: relaxed IsStandard rules for pay-to-script-hash transactions; new RPC calls for custom staking schemes; countermeasures against eclipse attacks; BC -&gt; BLK, as it became more widely used. Incompatible protocol changes: transaction fee is not enforced as a consensus rule; accept blocks with unknown version; replaced stake min age with min confirmations; limited drop of difficulty per block; made special marker nonspendable (the empty tx out); added nonspendable encoding for block signing key...." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details. This new version of the BlackCoin wallet is currently available for Linux and Windows: blackcoin-1.2.0-linux.zip (4.58MB), blackcoin-1.2.0-windows.zip (10.8MB). The source code link: v1.2.0.tar.gz (2.42MB).